Soviet Log 86
One Ritual Down, One More to Go AKA "Nun on Mech Action! (Grievous Wound for the Road)" We picked up the action mid-combat in the Forum during the eclipse just under 10 minutes in to the Herald Summoning Ritual. If you recall, our plan was to take out the Nazi Ritual Casters and then bail before being overwhelmed. Then, rinse/repeat at St. Peter's for the Vatican's Herald Ritual. For those keeping score at home, two of the mages were still casting with one down and out. It was good to have Mei Lynn back in full 'pc mode' since the Fovalaka was a serious threat. The two of them battled it out basically to a stalemate which is pretty impressive given how deadly those werewolves can be. Eva (via Scarlet Proxy) was focused on the third mage which was being kept alive by the same Super Elite Medic that had kept the other mages in the battle. Roq was facing off against Fritz and his 'best swordsman' power of Grievous Crits with "Bullshit Crit Range". Meanwhile, Katya was going after the other Mage while fighting off numerous enemies. Roq later remarked that it was a good thing that Fritz focused on her since it freed up Kat to take out two of the mages. Roq took three Grievous Wounds from Fritz while fighting him so it came at a high cost, though (she Bennied the 'Head-Wound' roll on the third one, which would've been another -4 to Strike and Defend!). After he beat up Roq but, thankfully after the second mage permanently went down, Fritz decided to pay some attention to Kat. It was hardly a fair fight at 4:1. Kat ended up taking two Grievous Wounds within a few segments while dodging a withering hail of fire, (but not those damn critical hits!). It was Eva, finally taking out the third mage, that secured our victory by fully disrupting the ritual. Mei Lynn then opened a Portal so we could flee. She and Roq were the first through. Katya wanted to follow but with a hurt leg and lost toes she could barely move. It was only her defend-auto-moves that allowed her to crawl/roll and roll out of danger and through the portal. Last through the portal was Eva, but not before Fritz, one of the Meks and some additional Nazis managed to slip through as well. We had a brief moment to breath when Mei Lynn closed the Portal before we noticed that the Mek was about to self-destruct, (apparently against the will of its occupants, who futilely tried to escape!). We all tried to flee the AOE but Kat was never going to make it due to her wounds. Mei valiantly sacrificed her own escape to translocate Kat out of harm's way, but it wasn't quite far enough. The Mek exploded like a mini-nuke and critical damage washed over us. Everyone managed to weather the blast except for Kat, who was already severely wounded so she took another wound and went down - just when she thought she was safe!. Roq revived her afterwards. For those keeping count, at the end of the Forum battle both Roq and Kat had three Grievous Wounds each. Mei and Eva had none. Next up was the Vatican's ritual. We were now close to the Vatican thanks to the Portal, and could see the blimp continuing its attack from the skies over St. Peter's. The streets were hectic but all of the chaos gave us cover to move closer and formulate our plan. It was quite simple, actually. "Sneek until we get caught. Talk until we cannot. Fight when we must. (then try taking again?)" Thanks to our earlier scouting, we knew the general layout so we picked a good place for Mei to weave her magic (literally) to neutralize the Vatican wall's defences and Portal us inside. Once inside, we snuck through the gardens towards the basilica. We considered booby-trapping the focal points for the ley line energy but they were heavily guarded. Rather than risk open conflict too early we snuck past and onto the basilica itself. Once nearby, we quickly saw that a Nazi strike team had already penetrated the interior and were fighting their way inward. The time for sneaking was past so we rigged a stained glass window with demolitions and blasted our way in. We started initiative with a coordinated (invisible) three-point superhero landing in the main hall. The Nazis were to our south waging battle with Church defenders. The hall had 4 squads of defenders holding back in reserve, too. We couldn't see the Ritual happening but Eva scanned to determine that it was behind a large door to the north, guarded by one of the squads of Swiss Guard. We snuck northwards which was pretty easy for everyone but poor Kat who could barely move. There was some trickery with smoke screens and ventriloquism but she eventually caught up. That's where we called it. We are poised to enter the ritual room. Who knows what horrors lurk beyond, (but it couldn't be worse than the Nazis, right?). Rewards 11 Generic 1 Combat Katya 3 Random Points and 1 Benny Roq 1 Benny Category:Soviet